President Barack Obama on Tuesday will propose that Congress pass a small package of spending cuts and tax reforms to put off the "harmful consequences'' of huge automatic spending cuts known as the "sequester'' for a few months, a White House official said.

I flipped through the channels yesterday, and some idiot on MSNBC had the nerve to say that zero has submitted a budget every year, even though it’s sometimes late, and it’s those Republicans that have blocked his budgets... such a big, fat, d#mn liar... He didn’t mention that the freaking SENATE hasn’t even brought zero’s or anyone else’s budget to a vote for 4 freaking years.

Da da da da, da da da da...the heralds proclaim his arrival. I wonder what band of suck ups he rounded up to speak before? The washington press pimps? Some quadrupple over paid government hacks out on their lunch breaks?

I also wonder how many teleprompters this dud has on call. He must have at least two on AF1 for any imprompto jaunt around the country.

All I hope is they do not preempt Rush because I cannot stand the mere sound of this asshat.

CBO reports 2013 Fed deficit $845 so far since OCt 1, 2012. FOUR Months!
‘You can pay me now, or pay me later. But sooner or later, you’re gonna pay!’ The Youth that voted for Obama will get just what they deserve.

10
posted on 02/05/2013 10:20:55 AM PST
by griswold3
(Big Government does not tolerate rivals.)

Speaker John Boehner is signaling he will not accept revenue increases that President Barack Obama is expected to propose to delay the automatic spending cuts that take hold at the beginning of March.

President Obama first proposed the sequester and insisted it become law, Boehner said in a statement. Republicans have twice voted to replace these arbitrary cuts with common-sense cuts and reforms that protect our national defense.

The sequester is not something that I proposed, Obama said during the debate in Boca Raton, Fla. It is something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen.

That directly contradicts a 2012 book from investigative journalist Bob Woodward

Then-OMB Director Jack Lew, now the White House chief of staff, and White House Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors pitched the idea to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Woodward writes, according to a Sept. 7 story appearing on the Politico website.

Under the deal, which Republicans accepted after several rounds of bargaining, the federal debt ceiling was raised  staving off a potential financial crisis.

The president is not proposing that the sequester go away, Zients told Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions during a Feb. 14 Senate Budget Committee hearing. The sequester is a very important forcing function for us to do deficit reduction. So the sequester will be replaced with a balanced approach to deficit reduction. (RELATED: Rep. Forbes says Obama holding national security hostage to blackmail Republicans into raising taxes)

In the debate, Obama said he didnt propose sequestration, Congress did. (We asked the White House for comment, but didn’t hear back.)

To determine the question of ownership, we turned to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodwards new book The Price of Politics.

Woodwards reporting shows clearly that defense sequestration was an idea that came out of Obamas White House. But the intention was to force Republicans to negotiate, not to actually put the cuts into effect.

Woodward summarizes the thoughts of the Obama team: “There would be no chance the Republicans would want to pull the trigger and allow the sequester to force massive cuts to Defense.” Democrats, meanwhile, didnt want to see their favorite domestic programs cut.

As the negotiations proceeded, Republicans seemed to think the same thing.

“Boehner told the House Republican leadership and other key members not to worry about the sequester Guys, this would be devastating to Defense, he said. This would be devastating, from their perspective, on their domestic priorities. This is never going to happen,” Woodward wrote.

I watched it. I know I am in the minority here, but on this issue Obama makes more sense than House Republicans who have already decided to throw Defense on the sacrificial altar to make a point.

The Sequester is bad policy. It was Romney and the Republicans who were shouting that very message loud and clear during the campaign.

It is bad for Defense, for the economy, and for the nation. Anyone remember the 3rd Presidential debate?

Panetta went on the Sunday shows with General Dempsey and made more sense than Paul Ryan did the week before. That should be a clue to the GOP that they need to be part of the solution.

We need entitlement reform, not another $600 Billion in new cuts to a DoD that already absorbed $450 Billion in cuts. The Tea Party is a great movement. I agree with it. But the "Well, burn it all down then" approach is stupid. They are going to marginalize themselves and the movement if they stick with that.

Obama gave a HUGE hint to both parties. He told the GOP that the entitlement reform he proposed before Christmas was "Still on the table, I repeat, those offers are still on the table."

That offer included a reduction in the Social Security Cost of Living increase. A huge savings over time, and one that made Harry Reid so angry he literally burned the proposal that Obama was considering in his Senate office fireplace.

Obama is going to travel around the country to gin up support for the delay to Sequester, and the talking heads at MSDNC were going nuts, saying that also meant he was going to "go around" Congressional Democrats who have vowed to step on broken glass before they would agree to slow our nation's explosive entitlement programs.

I wonder if the Republicans will realize this is an opening, or if Boehner will retreat to the bar and waste more time formulating "Plan B Two Redux the Sequel."

You do realize that fully 1/2 of the Sequester is not DoD? Its cuts to discretionary social programs. Why dont you want this to proceed?

Believe me. If we could cleanly cut just those programs, I would do a dance. Unfortunately, our "brilliant" GOP signed off on this Faustian bargain known as the "2011 Budget Control Act" that punished Defense to a much greater degree. Paul Ryan and John Boehner could have said "no" to the formula. As it stands, the DoD takes 50% of the cuts, yet it is 17% of the budget. Worse still, almost all entitlement spending was completely exempt, and still is.

Defense is a Constitutional enterprise. You and I are smart enough to know that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Dept of Education, Dept of Energy, Dept of Housing and Urban Development, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Section 8 Housing, and every other Federal giveaway program is not Constitutional.

But here we are. Facing this massive problem, with 3 weeks to go.

The Republicans can't just stand by and watch at least 1 million jobs (some projections are actually for 2 million jobs) disappear and Defense get gutted and declare "victory." Someone needs to wake the GOP up.

“The Republicans can’t just stand by and watch at least 1 million jobs (some projections are actually for 2 million jobs) disappear and Defense get gutted and declare “victory.” Someone needs to wake the GOP up.”

Why do you keep using the bureaucrat-speak referring to “gutting” when it is over 10 years?

The taxpayer can’t tell the difference between a dollar spent on defense or a dollar spent on other things. We don’t have the money.

You can't balance 3/3rds of the Federal budget while ignoring 2/3rds of it; and then targeting 17% of the remaining 1/3rd (which is Constitutional defense) with 50% of those cuts.

To all those who say loudly: "We are out of money!"

We sure are spending a lot of it on direct deposit checks to individuals, and none of that is addressed in this epic mess.

We just blew the entire year's Fiscal Cliff tax raise on the Hurricane Sandy pork bill.

This is obscene.

But, when the defenders of the Defense budget point out that the current course of Sequestration is wrong headed, misdirected, and does not fix our real problems, people complain.

Obama is the worst President in history. His fiscal policies are a disaster. The Democrats are Communists in power ties, and the Republicans have become the "me too!" defenders of the Entitlement state. All Sequestration accomplishes is that it punishes the innocent and allows the guilty to get a free pass.

You have to cut. You have to cut big. Frankly, in the Continuing Resolution upcoming for March 27, a conservative must want to see even MORE cuts, added to, not replacing, the Sequester, and to get them passed DoD will have to eat some of those as well.

Government must get smaller. The number one threat to the USA is not military; it is fiscal. These cuts must happen and DoD will not be immune. Most particularly civil service pensions must not be immune — including Congressional pensions.

“We need entitlement reform, not another $600 Billion in new cuts to a DoD that already absorbed $450 Billion in cuts. The Tea Party is a great movement. I agree with it. But the “Well, burn it all down then” approach is stupid. They are going to marginalize themselves and the movement if they stick with that.”

Cuts are inevitable at this point. The sooner the spending cuts come, the better.

Why do you think Obama’s trying to do his damndest to avoid sequestration?

44
posted on 02/05/2013 8:05:26 PM PST
by JCBreckenridge
(Texas is a state of mind - Steinbeck)

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